Valais, Ardève 1, Jacques Perrin & M.-Th. Chappaz

The love story between Fully and the family of Marie-Thérèse Chappaz goes back a long way, almost a century. It was in 1940 that Maurice Troillet, Marie-Thérèse's great-uncle, bought a nurseryman's shed next to which he built the stone house of Liaudisaz in 1943. This was later to become a wine estate where Maurice Chappaz and Corinna Bille lived. It is also the story of a vocation and perseverance. The young girl who thought she would be a midwife and the traveller who dreamed of putting her altruism at the service of the most disadvantaged, with the bequest of her first vineyard, revealed the winegrower, the one who still walks her plots with the same passion, attentive to the signs and tremors of the plant world. Demanding with herself as well as with others, even intransigent, Marie-Thérèse willingly cultivates anxiety, because she knows that the best is at that price. Through her notoriety, she has become the ambassador of Valais wines in the world and, in a way, she is the most visible emblem of Fully Grand Cru. Icon and iconic are nowadays terms that are often overused, including in the wine world where they mostly reflect the bloated egos of certain winemakers. Promoted in 2015 to "Icon of Swiss Wines", Marie-Thérèse nevertheless amply deserves this distinction, which she embodies on a daily basis. Her humility, her high standards and her concern for others bring us...